The stock market and investment portfolios are continually evolving. With banks recommending the incorporation of cryptocurrencies in their investments and including artificial intelligence and energy growth stocks, another conversation has extended into the new year: Is energy the key to maintaining a competitive edge in this growing war for AI expansion?
Meta Platforms believes this, as evidenced by its latest move to confirm long-term partnerships with three nuclear energy companies- Vistra, Oklo, and TerraPower.
There is a growing need for energy to power data centers that are driving the next wave of AI innovation. According to a report by S&P Global, US data center demand is expected to rise to 75.8 GW for IT equipment, cooling, lighting, and other related services in 2026, and is projected to expand to 108 GW in 2028 and 134.4 GW in 2030.
This is largely driven by the growing needs of AI. With tech giants such as Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia simultaneously competing to develop better, more advanced, and optimized products, the collective need for “capabilities of large-scale onsite power alternatives” is also constantly increasing.
Oklo’s stock is up 42% year-to-date.
Oklo
According to IEA (International Energy Agency), the United States has the highest per-capita data center consumption, around 540 kWh in 2024.
What is Meta’s new energy deal?
In December 2024, Meta released a request for proposals (RFP) to identify nuclear energy developers that could help the company reach its target “to add 1-4 GW of new nuclear generation capacity in the U.S. to be delivered starting in the early 2030s.”
Under this, Meta signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Constellation Energy in June 2025 to support its clean energy goals. Meta will buy 1.1 GW of energy from Constellation’s Clinton Clean Energy Center, beginning June 2027.
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On Jan 9, 2026, Meta signed new deals with 3 nuclear energy providers, Oklo, TerraPower, and Vistra, that will support up to 6.6 GW of new and existing clean energy by 2035.
With Oklo and TerraPower, Meta wants to accelerate nuclear innovation, whereas with Vistra, the social media giant will purchase more than 2.1 GW of power while providing financial support to maintain plant operations.
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Meta funds TerraPower’s new units
Meta will provide funding, financial details of which were not disclosed, to develop up to eight new TerraPower Natirum reactors in the U.S., which will provide up to 2.8 GW of carbon-free baseload energy to Meta. An initial delivery is expected in 2032.
This makes it Meta’s largest support of advanced nuclear technologies to date.
“To successfully address growing energy demand, we must deploy gigawatts of advanced nuclear energy in the 2030s,” said Chris Leverque, TerraPower president and CEO.
Adding that its first Natrium plant is already under development with a completed design, established supply chain, and has already “cleared key regulatory milestones,” highlighting its readiness to fulfil the terms of this major agreement with a hyperscaler like Meta.
Oklo and Vistra’s expansion supported by Meta
Meta, through this deal, with push the expansion of new nuclear energy capacity in Pike County, Ohio, in partnership with Oklo. Expected to be operational by 2030, this plant will add approximately 1.2 GW of baseload power, supporting Meta’s existing operations in the area.
Meanwhile, Meta will provide financial support to maintain the existing Vistra plants, including the Perry and David-Besse facilities in Ohio and the Beaver Valley plant in Pennsylvania. These plants, in response, will support Meta’s operations, including its Prometheus supercluster in Ohio, by powering the grids that support Meta’s data centers.
These projects will provide reliable and stable power to the grid, strengthening America’s nuclear supply chain while supporting both new and existing jobs, as Meta has stated in its official statement.
Bank of America sees the deals as strategic
Analysts at Bank of America, while reiterating their Buy rating on the tech giant, view these new energy deals from Meta as a means to address a key constraint for data center expansion: power.
The deals, according to BofA, will help Meta’s “AI capacity growth for the next decade,” and while no financial disclosures were noted, analysts at BofA noted that these multiyear deals with capacity primarily coming online after 2030, suggest more near-term capitalized investment.
The availability of power is a key constraint in the world of data centers. Centers that are continuously expanding, but are also increasing the pressure on existing power grids. BofA notes that this is what prompted Meta to secure long-term energy partnerships “to lock in capacity and pricing certainty.”
BofA notes that Meta’s 2026 expense guide and the new LLM launch in early 2026 will remain major areas of focus for the company. Analysts highlight that despite cost-cutting measures in non-AI divisions, the AI growth cycle is too large and “still early to expect any pullback on spend.”
Thus, they expect increased capital expenditures in 2026 as well, in line with Meta’s Q3 earnings call, which stated that “total expenses growing at a significantly faster rate.”
On Friday, Jan 9, after the deal announcement, Vistra and Oklo gained 10% and 8% respectively, and Meta was up 1%. On Monday, Vistra continued its upward trend, closing 3.7% higher, despite the company’s stock remaining down 6% year-to-date. Oklo was down 2.7%. Meta’s stock was also down 1.7% on Monday, representing a 2.7% decline year-to-date; however, it was trading up after hours.
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